Chapter 57: CH 57

Just like shark teeth, dragon fangs grew in constantly. Benihiryuus, for example, had two rows of fangs in their mouths that grew as if they were being pushed outwards by something underneath.

Staring at those fangs, so thick at the roots that my fingers couldn’t fully wrap around them, I wondered if they were the (open) secret to easily chewing through any beast…

Fikar had told Su to hold her mouth open so we could see inside, and although she did as she was told, her little gurgles told me she was confused. I peeked inside cautiously, but Fikar had his neck between Su’s jaws and it looked like she was about to make him her prey.

“Ah, that might be good. Pull it out gently so it doesn’t hurt.”

Fikar moved towards a fang that was growing a little further back and to the left. The tooth underneath it was already growing in, dislodging the old one in a way that made it easier to fall out. Old fangs like that usually broke while eating and fighting, were swallowed with meals, or simply fell out and onto the forest floor.

A dragon’s fangs were chock-full of magic power and extremely tough to boot – so long as they were carefully maintained using the origin dragon’s attribute. Su was a fire dragon, so even if her fangs and scales took some damage, she fixed them up by roasting them with her breath, keeping her teeth sharp and her armor virtually impenetrable. Thanks to that mechanism, dragon fangs, scales, and bones, too, were prized materials for weapons and armor.

Of course, dragons were strong magic beasts, so the bigger the dragon, the harder it was to obtain those materials and the higher the price. However, if you wanted to seriously consider going to the northwesternmost regions, dragon-based gear was a must, so Fikar and I wanted to give Ludo-san a set of arrowheads as a parting gift.

“Gau!”

“Ai, that hurt~ There, there~ Sorry, sorry~”

Once the tenth tooth came loose, Su’s golden eyes became watering puppy-dog eyes and she made a show of shuddering. Was she saying that we were being mean? As I stroked her lower jaw, she purred and gently opened her smallish arms. I jumped in, and her arms closed around me, taking care to keep her claws from poking me.

Dragons were good at imitating others, including humans, probably because of their high intelligence. For example, the flightless himekoryuu learned to help humans gather mushrooms in the forest. And Su was no exception, cutely staring at us from time to time to learn how we behaved.

Su often saw Fikar treating me like a stuffed animal, so she started begging to let her hold me. I usually didn’t, but there were certain situations where it couldn’t be helped, like if she did a good job or if she looked particularly pitiful. 

Our dragon might’ve been a genius, though it seemed like every dragon owner thought that at least once in their lives.

Su’s rubbed her cheek against me, but her head was so big that I had to struggle to keep my balance. Eventually, Fikar pushed Su away and rescued me, but my feelings about that were delicate at best since the root cause – the person being imitated – was also Fikar.

After gathering the dragon fangs, the next step was to carve out the desired shape while pouring magic power into it. When I asked the smith for advice, he gave me a wooden arrowhead as a rough guide and told me to take it and the teeth to Kontos-san, a proper magician, since neither he nor his father had enough magic power to mold dragon fangs.

Though, I heard that Kontos-san was currently immersed in his research, so I set this project aside for another day.

After securing the materials, another session of dance practice was waiting for us.

The Sorceress was a girl blessed by the fairies.

Long, long ago, magic wasn’t about using your internal magic power, but rather about connecting with fairies to obtain their blessings. In those days, humans and fairies lived close to one another, so plenty of people had the opportunity to meet a fairy or two.

To symbolize the powers granted by the fairies, the Sorceress rang bells during her dance. Instead of using ones made out of metal, these bells came from the suzunomi1 bush, whose roe-sized fruits clumped together in their vaguely bell-like shapes. Drying the fruit and then soaking it in water, only the outer shell and the small seeds within remained, and by shaking one, the little seeds made a delicate, high-pitched ringing sound. If you shook the whole bunch, you’d hear a silky, mystical tune.

Around her ankles, the Sorceress wore ribbons, 5cm across and covered in suzunomi, with slightly thinner ribbons going around her wrists. The wrist ribbons also had a triangular piece of cloth attached to cover the back of her hand, and there was naturally another bunch of suzunomi sewn there too.

Since the Sorceress didn’t have to use a weapon, her fingers were always together and perfectly straight. Once the Hero became surrounded by the men dressed as magic beasts, the Sorceress’s performance began, and the choreography for her fight scene was relatively simple: skipping and spinning. That said, her motions had to be perfectly timed and her feet had to hit the ground at precise times for the suzunomi to resonate in sync with the rest of the performance.

It took skill to stop your wrists with a snap and shake your feet in miniature motions to get the suzunomi to make the right sounds.

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Who said dancing was easy?

“Sumire, one more time. There! Stop and give it a little twist.”

In spite of the challenges, I diligently followed every little directive from Cecile-san, who was giving me lessons between weaving jobs. We practiced the dance over and over, again and again, learning the moves to make sure my feet moved at the right times and to the right places.

Cecile-san told me that I didn’t have to act like every day was my last chance to practice, but I still danced myself sick every day. If I had no choice but to dance, I wasn’t going to just let myself fail, although there was also another compelling reason to dance until I drowned in sweat and my muscles screamed.

It was something common in the previous world, but I never thought I’d need it here:

Dieting.

The Sorceress’s costume consisted of several layers of light-colored, semi-transparent fabrics. She wore a belly dancer-style short top, slender pants, and a loose sleeveless one-piece over that, so if you looked for more than a second, you could see right through to her belly button. The outfit’s bright color palette looked pretty under the sun’s rays, but when backlit by those rays, the thinness of the fabrics revealed her body line in all of its glory. Her arms, too, were fully visible.

No matter how hot it was, I’d never worn clothing so thin.

As an adventurer, I often ventured into the forest, where I wore solid-fabric clothes that covered most of my skin. As a result of my adventuring, I’d gained some muscle, so this life was a far cry from the miniskirts of my high school uniform, which caused me constant concern over my skinniness. And on top of that, recently, there were the delicacies I shared with Fikar.

I was kind of stocky, but the pudginess was still there.

Wearing a practicing costume, my mood turned grave. In preparation for the evening festival, I vowed to shed weight naturally through diet and exercise.

“Cecile-san, can I watch you do it again?”

“Sure~”

Thanks to my hard work, I was able to memorize the choreography in no time. The tiny ringing motions needed more practice, but I was assured that I would have it nailed down by the big day.

“Once he finishes learning his moves, maybe it’s time to try matching your movements with Fikar’s.”

Cecile-san said so as she picked up a spicy snack.

Fikar’s role as Hero, with its violent fighting dance against the magic beasts, required a choreography about twice as long as mine. There was also the fact that he had to sync his movements with the people playing the magic beasts, but according to Ludo-san, he was a quick learner. Was it because his physical ability was high to begin with?

And so, as the days in Tortea grew steadily hotter, preparations plodded along.

“Mushrooms are a diet food… Mushrooms are a diet food…”

That night, I chopped up a few perversity mushrooms and added them to the soup, muttering that mantra with a pained look on my face. Fikar went into a rare panic over that and carried me to the clinic, just to make sure I hadn’t gone crazy. Yet.

TL Notes:

1: This says スズノミ (su-zu-no-mi), where 鈴 (suzu) often refers to globular bells (think sleigh bells), but I don’t know what ノミ could mean. At the very least, I no longer think that スズノミ was meant to be 錫蚤 (suzu-nomi), meaning “tin flea”.

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